James Axler – Stoneface

The water was turning cold, and he was grateful for it. His body was soon answering to his mind again. He climbed out of the tub, dried off and dressed quickly.

Back upstairs in his room, he found Krysty stretched out on the bed, wearing only a towel around her torso. Ryan sat down beside her and leaned over to kiss her lips, rubbing his smoothly shaven cheek against her face.

Krysty said playfully, “Now that I don’t have to worry about beard burn” She undid the towel and tugged at Ryan’s belt.

Sighing, he reluctantly pushed her hand away. His eye drank in the womanly beauty of her form, from the full breasts tipped with hardening nipples, to the flat-muscled belly and down to the crimson tangle at the juncture of her rounded thighs.

“You have no idea how much I want you, lover,” he said with a smile, “but I have to call a tactical meeting. With everybody present and fully clothed.”

Krysty frowned for a moment, then sat up, reaching for her clothes. “It’ll keep, I guess.”

“God, I hope so.”

While Krysty dressed, Ryan fetched the others. It took longer than it should have to rouse Doc. Ryan was a little concerned by how exhausted he was. The old man had often displayed a stamina astounding for what his body had been through at the hands of the whitecoats, but today he looked as if he were feeling every second of his two-hundred-odd years.

Back in his room, Ryan told everyone about his encounter with Fleur. No one made any jokes, for which he was grateful, but Krysty’s eyes flashed with emerald fire.

“Do you figure Hellstrom sent her?” J.B. asked.

“Mebbe, though I doubt it. She trotted out the old ‘my life is yours’ horseshit, even though crawfishing on debts seems to be part of Helskel’s basic philosophy.”

“What you do?” Jak asked. “Be warlord?”

“It very much appears that is your sole option,” Doc said. “Otherwise” He drew a thumb across his throat.

“If I accept the offer,” Ryan replied, “then we’ll be bound to take on Hellstrom’s mission to breach the Anthill. Mildred, you know anything about the Continuity of Government program? How much of Hellstrom’s story about the installation can be matched up with actual history?”

Mildred shook her head, the beads in her plaited hair clicking. “Some of it, all of it, none of it. Keep in mind that paranoia was rampant during the last decade of the twentieth century. There was a historically high level of distrust in the government. There were rumors of secret deals and an exchange of technology with the Russians, and even, believe it or not, with extraterrestrials.”

“Extraterrestrials?” Krysty echoed.

“Yeah. One school of thought was that the Star Wars defense program was designed to protect earth from an invasion from space, not to intercept nuclear missiles. Anyway, Ryan, to answer your question, all I can say is, I don’t know. Since the technology existed to time trawl and teleport living matter across the world a century ago, I don’t find the concept of bionically altered predarkers living in a cryonically controlled stronghold all that incredible.”

J.B. took off his spectacles and breathed on the lenses. “If it is true, we’ll have access to the mother of all stockpiles. We could write our own tickets, anywhere in Deathlands.”

“And Lars Hellstrom can and will punch those tickets,” Krysty said grimly. “We can’t trust him to keep his word.”

“It is a rigged game he wants us to play,” Doc said. “And there is only one way to win at a rigged game. That is to quit.”

“Or rig the game in our favor,” Ryan replied. “Any suggestions?”

“Chill Hellstrom,” Jak said.

“That’ll be our final hand to play. No, I think our best tactic is to keep a low profile for the next three days. Mebbe during that time we can find an ace on the line.”

“And if we can’t?” J.B. challenged. “Then what?”

“Then I’ll accept the appointment to warlord and we’ll go from there.”

Krysty shook her head in frustrated anger. “I hope this teaches us to be more careful about what we promise dying men in the future. A good deed never goes unpunished.”